Dwayne Wade and Ray Allen were at the White House being interviewed by Heat coach Erik Spoelstra about the importance of the First Lady’s Let’s Move program, when suddenly, out of no where, the First Lady swooped in with a massive dunk over LaBron James.
Don’t believe me? Watch the amazing below!
Chris Christie was inaugurated for his second term as Governor of New Jersey today. It’s also snowing quite a bit. That will make his downhill slide easier and the crash at the bottom more pronounced. He’s embroiled in two scandals, both of which will turn out to have been his own making, and he made a state of the state address last week that was so devoid of usable ideas, it’s probably DOA in a Democratic legislature that is in no mood to compromise with him over controversial issues.
The Bridge issue by itself could probably be chalked up to election year hi-jinx by a guy who doesn’t understand nuance and positive energy. Now we have another scandal that cuts even deeper and shows a pattern of behavior among Governor Christie’s appointees and running mate that could touch him. The results will not be pretty.
The story involves aid for Sandy storm victims, but is tied up in election year politics and the desire Christie had to win a huge, forty-point plus victory over Democrat Barbara Buono this past November.
His administration chose an ad agency to promote the shore using Sandy funds, which might be OK except that the agency it chose cost $2.2 million dollars more that the other bidder and promised to put Christie and his family in the ads. Not bad in an election year where about the only issue Christie could run on, because the economy was still in a shambles, was Sandy relief. That makes the Hoboken issue that much more relevant, because the city really could have used any or all of those millions to, let’s say, help people who were flooded out or needed assistance with programs that might help them get back on their feet. Instead, we get the first-ever Lieutenant Governor making threats against a Christie supporter, Mayor Dawn Zimmer, to help a political friend.
New Jersey is already an ethical sewer. Did Christie and Guadagno really have to flush at that moment?
Christie’s office did offer a rebuke to Mayor Zimmer, but never addressed the accusations against Guadagno and attacked MSNBC, the network that’s been the main mouthpiece for the story. That’s classic Christie and follows the larger Republican strategy when they’re challenged: discredit the opposition and call them names. Ouch.
But now Mayor Zimmer is talking with prosecutors at their request. Double ouch.
There will be more subpeonas and an occasional leak of juicy information and the result will be a prolonged period of stalemate where the governor wants to move beyond the scandals and the legislature wants to air every stitch of dirty laundry to lessen Christie’s influence.
As for policy, last week’s speech in Trenton wasn’t just a rehashing of his fight with teachers and other public unions: it was a renewed call to battle against them by proposing to take more of their income and break their power. The governor wants everyone else to contribute more for their pensions and health benefits, which would severely impact those middle class workers, while he works on a tax break for the wealthy and reneges on his promise to make full state pension payments.
That idea would be bad enough, but the real insight into Christie’s thinking is his not-even-half-baked proposal to lengthen the public school day and year. His lack of detail was stunning for such a high-profile pronouncement. Clearly, he’s going through the motions of checking off ideas from the conservative playbook in an effort to curry favor with the Republican right wing. Needless to say, reaction has not been positive, and for good reason.
First of all, where is the money coming from to install air conditioning and run electrical power for the rest of June and into July? Where is the money coming from to pay teachers past June 30? What will happen to shore businesses, camps, academic programs and enrichment activities that are a vital part of summer in New Jersey? Yes, the governor rightly said that the school calendar is outdated, but other industries have grown around it that are vital cogs in the economic and academic life of students and teachers. He hasn’t addressed that, and my guess is that he probably won’t. He’ll just spend time bashing teachers for not wanting to give up summer vacation, even though the summer is just another two months where most teachers need to find an income so they can eat or not lose their houses.
Chris Christie only knows one speed when it comes to doing his job, and it’s going to result in a crackup. A comeback is certainly possible, but the damage has been done.
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Former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and his wife were charged Tuesday in federal court in a gifts investigation, McDonnell confirmed:
“Earlier today federal prosecutors notified my attorneys that they have filed criminal charges against me and my wife Maureen, alleging that we violated federal law by accepting gifts and loans from Jonnie Williams, the former CEO of Star Scientific,” read a statement from McDonnell.
McDonnell came under state and federal investigation after he and his family accepted thousands of dollars’ worth of gifts from former Star Scientific CEO Jonnie Williams Sr.
McDonnell again apologized for his actions and denied breaking any laws.
“I deeply regret accepting legal gifts and loans from Mr. Williams, all of which have been repaid with interest, and I have apologized for my poor judgment for which I take full responsibility,” he said. “However, I repeat emphatically that I did nothing illegal for Mr. Williams in exchange for what I believed was his personal generosity and friendship. I never promised – and Mr. Williams and his company never received – any government benefit of any kind from me or my Administration.”
By Bonnie Berkowitz and Patterson Clark, Published: Jan. 20, 2014
We know sitting too much is bad, and most of us intuitively feel a little guilty after a long TV binge. But what exactly goes wrong in our bodies when we park ourselves for nearly eight hours per day, the average for a U.S. adult? Many things, say four experts, who detailed a chain of problems from head to toe. Download a pdf poster of this graphic.
HEART DISEASE
Muscles burn less fat and blood flows more sluggishly during a long sit, allowing fatty acids to more easily clog the heart. Prolonged sitting has been linked to high blood pressure and elevated cholesterol, and people with the most sedentary time are more than twice as likely to have cardiovascular disease than those with the least.
OVERPRODUCTIVE PANCREAS
The pancreas produces insulin, a hormone that carries glucose to cells for energy. But cells in idle muscles don’t respond as readily to insulin, so the pancreas produces more and more, which can lead to diabetes and other diseases. A 2011 study found a decline in insulin response after just one day of prolonged sitting.
COLON CANCER
Studies have linked sitting to a greater risk for colon, breast and endometrial cancers. The reason is unclear, but one theory is that excess insulin encourages cell growth. Another is that regular movement boosts natural antioxidants that kill cell-damaging
— and potentially cancer-causing — free radicals.
MUSHY ABS
When you stand, move or even sit up straight, abdominal muscles keep you upright. But when you slump in a chair, they go unused. Tight back muscles and wimpy abs form a posture-wrecking alliance that can exaggerate the spine’s natural arch, a condition called hyperlordosis, or swayback.
TIGHT HIPS
Flexible hips help keep you balanced, but chronic sitters so rarely extend the hip flexor muscles in front that they become short and tight, limiting range of motion and stride length. Studies have found that decreased hip mobility is a main reason elderly people tend to fall.
LIMP GLUTES
Sitting requires your glutes to do absolutely nothing, and they get used to it. Soft glutes hurt your stability, your ability to push off and your ability to maintain a powerful stride.
POOR CIRCULATION IN LEGS
Sitting for long periods of time slows blood circulation, which causes fluid to pool in the legs. Problems range from swollen ankles and varicose veins to dangerous blood clots called deep vein thrombosis (DVT).
SOFT BONES
Weight-bearing activities such as walking and running stimulate hip and lower-body bones to grow thicker, denser and stronger. Scientists partially attribute the recent surge in cases of osteoporosis to lack of activity.
FOGGY BRAIN
Moving muscles pump fresh blood and oxygen through the brain and trigger the release of all sorts of brain- and mood-enhancing chemicals. When we are sedentary for a long time, everything slows, including brain function.
STRAINED NECK
If most of your sitting occurs at a desk at work, craning your neck forward toward a keyboard or tilting your head to cradle a phone while typing can strain the cervical vertebrae and lead to permanent imbalances.
SORE SHOULDERS AND BACK
The neck doesn’t slouch alone. Slumping forward overextends the shoulder and back muscles as well, particularly the trapezius, which connects the neck and shoulders.
INFLEXIBLE SPINE
When we move around, soft discs between vertebrae expand and contract like sponges, soaking up fresh blood and nutrients. But when we sit for a long time, discs are squashed unevenly. Collagen hardens around supporting tendons and ligaments.
DISK DAMAGE
People who sit more are at greater risk for herniated lumbar disks. A muscle called the psoas travels through the abdominal cavity and, when it tightens, pulls the upper lumbar spine forward. Upper-body weight rests entirely on the ischeal tuberosity (sitting bones) instead of being distributed along the arch of the spine.
People who watched the most TV in an 8.5-year study had a 61 percent greater risk of dying than those who watched less than one hour per day.
4%
14%
31%
61%
1-2
3-4
5-6
7+
Hours of TV per day
If you have to sit often, try to do it correctly. As Mom always said, “Sit up straight.”
• Not leaning forward
• Shoulders relaxed
• Arms close to sides
• Elbows bent 90°
• Lower back may
be supported
• Feet flat on floor
Sitting on something wobblysuch as an exercise ball or even a backless stool to force your core muscles to work. Sit up straight and keep your feet flat on the floor in front of you so they support about a quarter of your weight.
Stretching the hip flexorsfor three minutes per side once a day.
Walking during commercials when you’re watching TV. Even a snail-like pace of 1 mph would burn twice the calories of sitting, and more vigorous exercise would be even better.
Alternating between sitting and standing at your work station. If you can’t do that, stand up every half hour or so and walk.
Trying yoga poses — the cow pose and the cat — to improve extension and flexion in your back.
THE EXPERTS
| Scientists interviewed for this report
James A. Levine, inventor of the treadmill desk and director of Obesity Solutions at Mayo Clinic and Arizona State University.
Charles E. Matthews, National Cancer Institute investigator and author of several studies on sedentary behavior.
Jay Dicharry, director of the REP Biomechanics Lab in Bend, Ore., and author of “Anatomy for Runners.”
Tal Amasay, biomechanist at Barry University’s Department of Sport and Exercise Sciences.
h/t – positivemed
A Republican county official in Michigan is in hot water after making racial comments about Detroit, including the idea that the city should be turned into a detention center for “all the Indians.”
In a recent interview for a profile by The New Yorker titled “Drop Dead, Detroit!” Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson admitted, “Anytime I talk about Detroit, it will not be positive. Therefore, I’m called a Detroit basher. The truth hurts, you know? Tough sh*t.”
Patterson recalled telling his children to “get in and get out” if they needed to go to Detroit.
“And, before you go to Detroit, you get your gas out here. You do not, do not, under any circumstances, stop in Detroit at a gas station! That’s just a call for a carjacking,” he said.
Patterson also proposed a fix to Detroit’s financial problems: Turn the city into a reservation for Native Americans.
“I made a prediction a long time ago, and it’s come to pass. I said, ‘What we’re gonna do is turn Detroit into an Indian reservation, where we herd all the Indians into the city, build a fence around it, and then throw in the blankets and the corn.’”
After Detroit officials and activists reacted with outrage, Patterson’s office released a statement accusing The New Yorker of having an “agenda.”
“It is clear Paige Williams had an agenda when she interviewed County Executive Patterson,” the statement said. “She cast him in a false light in order to fit her preconceived and outdated notions about the region.”
Activists with Reverend Al Sharpton’s National Action Network had planned a news conference on Tuesday to call for Patterson to apologize.
National Action Network’s Michigan chapter president Rev. Charles Williams II said that the comments were “repulsive” because they were an insult to the city’s African-American population and “a direct slight to the American Indians who occupied the land before Detroit was Detroit, and Oakland County.”
In recent years, Patterson has also come under fire for comparing Michigan House Speaker Jase Bolger to Hitler and for suggesting that Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano kill himself.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie will take his oath of office midday Tuesday for a second term, amid a scandal over traffic jams on a busy bridge and controversies over Superstorm Sandy aid.
In excerpts of Christie’s inaugural address provided by his office, the Republican who is considered a potential 2016 presidential candidate makes no mention of the allegations of abuse of power that are challenging his administration.
Instead, Christie touches on themes of income inequality, the role of limited government and divisions that threaten progress in the Garden State.
“One of the lessons that I have learned most acutely over the last four years is that New Jersey can really be one state. This election has taught us that the ways we divide each other — by race, by class, by ethnicity, by wealth, by political party is neither permanent nor necessary,” Christie will say. “We have to be willing to play outside the red and blue boxes the media and pundits put us in. We have to be willing to reach out to others who look or speak differently than us.”
These are the chilling selfies a female serial killer and her alleged accomplice took while the pair were on the run from police.
Joanna Dennehy, 31, has admitted stabbing three men in the heart and dumping their bodies in ditches.
The bodies of her three victims were found in fields near to Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, in March and April last year.
Despite killing the three, Dennehy remained unsatisfied and fled to Hereford in search of more victims, a jury heard.
She cruised the city and selected two other men at random, stabbing Robin Bereza, 64, and John Rogers, 56, who survived the cold-blooded attacks.
Alleged conspirators Gary ‘Stretch’ Richards, 47, and Leslie Layton, 37, who are now on trial at Cambridge Crown Court, deny helping to cover up the ‘terrible truth’ of the murders.
Pictures of Dennehy and Richards were shown to the court as Mark Lloyd, an associate of the man, gave evidence. Georgina Page, a friend of Dennehy’s, also gave evidence today.
The shocking images include one of Dennehy jovially sticking her tongue out as she brandishes a jagged knife with handcuffs attached to her trousers.
In another the killer is pictured revealing her underwear and standing in a provocative sexual position in the days after committing her crimes. It shows a series of horrendous scars caused by the mother’s relentless self-harming.
Victims Lukasz Slaboszewski (left) and Kevin Lee – who were stabbed in the heart by Dennehy
Mr Lloyd said Dennehy returned to the car and kissed Stretch on the cheek ‘as if to say thanks’.
He said the second attack was a ‘brutal re-run’ of the stabbing just moments earlier.
John Chapman was also stabbed to death by the 31-year-old
After the second knife attack Mr Lloyd said Dennehy returned with the victim’s dog in her arms and declared it was her new pet.
Mr Lloyd said: ‘It was terrified of her. It was physically shaking on her lap. She wanted to take the dog for a walk.’
He added that Dennehy treated 7ft 3in Stretch ‘like a puppy’ and said the giant would be dead if the killer hadn’t needed him to drive her around.
Georgina Page then told the court how she and Dennehy became friends while serving jail sentences together.
She said she next saw her former cell mate when she and Stretch turned up on her doorstep in King’s Lynn, Norfolk, following the murders.
She said: ‘When I was inside with her she wasn’t a murderer or nothing. At first I didn’t believe her.
‘I was very shocked. I was scared, I didn’t know what to do.’
The court also heard that during the pair’s stay at Ms Page’s house Dennehy was ‘jumping around’ in delight at seeing her face on the news.
Ms Page said the killer downed whisky and ate a ham sandwich while bragging about her violent acts.
She said: ‘I was terrified. Stretch turned round and said that if anyone grassed on them he would get his dad to sort them out.
‘Joanna was talking about something and saying “you know we’re going to get caught and sent to jail for a long time”.’
She also said Dennehy compared herself and Stretch to ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ whose gang killed nine policeman in 1930s America.
Killer: Joanna Dennehy stabbed three men in a 10-day spree of violence
And when she asked her why she had killed, Dennehy responded: ‘They shouldn’t have pissed me off, they shouldn’t have flirted with me’
A picture of the knife believed to be used in all five attacks was also shown to court and described as a nine-inch fold knife.
Mr Lloyd said he saw the same knife in Dennehy’s hands at a flat in Hereford occupied by his friend Moby.
It was there that Dennehy took pictures of herself and Stretch as they prepared to drive round the city in a bid to kill again.
Mr Lloyd told the jury that the blade ‘was as black as the handle’ because of all the congealed blood and that it ‘smelt like copper’.
He said Dennehy than told him: ‘I’ve killed three people, Gary’s helped dispose of them and I want to do some more. You’ve had your fun Gary, I want my fun.’
Mr Lloyd also revealed that Dennehy flirted with him and ‘caressed’ his neck and backside.
He told the court she said: ‘I wish I could have met you last year, your my type of guy’
He said that Stretch ‘was not liking it one bit’ before the three of them got into the green Vauxhall Astra that the killer had travelled in from Peterborough.
Mr Lloyd then said he tried to call the police while Stretch drove around Hereford looking for victims for Dennehy.
But he failed to do so and told a court that ‘Gary was the taxi driver, she went around killing people’.
The trial continues.
Read more: DailyMail
Thicke was in Paris over the weekend partying with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian. But this pretty young thing captured and Blurred the lines of Thicke, as he seemed to have had too much fun with the unidentified woman.
Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer turned over her journal and other documents to the U.S. Attorney’s Office Sunday, which she says show Governor Christie’s administration threatened to withhold Superstorm Sandy aid if she didn’t approve a development.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office said the office does not discuss publicly its meetings and would not confirm whether the office is investigating Zimmer’s allegations.
The mayor released a statement saying she met with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Newark for several hours at their request and turned over the journal entry she cited as proof of her conversations with Guadagno and Constable.
“As they pursue this investigation, I will provide any requested information and testify under oath about the facts of what happened when the Lieutenant Governor came to Hoboken and told me that Sandy aid would be contingent on moving forward with a private development project,” Zimmer said in a statement.
The administration has denied Zimmer’s allegations.
Zimmer went on MSNBC Saturday and accused Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno and Richard Constable, the commissioner of the state Department of Community of Affairs, of telling her they would not be able to help the city if she didn’t approve a real estate project in the northern end of the city.
Wearing a gray cap and inmate’s uniform with the number 103 on his chest, Bae spoke in Korean during the brief appearance, which was attended by The Associated Press and a few other foreign media in Pyongyang.
“I believe that my problem can be solved by close cooperation and agreement between the American government and the government of this country,” he said.
Bae, the longest-serving American detainee in North Korea in recent years, expressed hope that the U.S. government will do its best to secure his release. He said he has not been treated badly in confinement.
A sticking point with Bae might be that the U.S. government has said he is not guilty of any crimes. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said last month that Bae is being held without reason, which Pyongyang denies. Bae on Monday made an apology and said he had committed anti-government acts. He said recent comments in the media from the U.S. side — likely alluding to Biden’s remarks — have made his situation more complicated.
Bae was arrested in November 2012 while leading a tour group and accused of crimes against the state before being sentenced to 15 years of hard labor. He was moved to a hospital last summer in poor health.
Fox News is hemorrhaging young viewers, but last week, things hit a new low for Fox. Rachel Maddow beat Fox News for the entire week with viewers age 25-54.
According to TVNewser, “The Rachel Maddow Show” averaged 325,000 A25-54 viewers for the week, topping Fox News’ “The Kelly File,” which drew 305,000, and “Piers Morgan Tonight,” which had 159,000. It was MSNBC’s best 9pmET performance since the week of the Boston Marathon bombing (4/15/13). MSNBC’s coverage of the Chris Christie bridge scandal propelled MSNBC to#1 in the primetime demo on both Thursday and Friday of last week. Maddow won the 9pmET timeslot among younger viewers both nights.”
Moving Megyn Kelly to 9 PM was supposed to lure young viewers to Fox News. That move has failed as Kelly isn’t drawing the younger demographic that Fox News desperately needs for the future. The Maddow victory comes on the heels of Fox News seeing a 30% drop in young viewership in 2013. These numbers are also a huge victory for Maddow. She broke the Bridgegate story, and it is nice to see her being rewarded for some excellent reporting.
